United announced its largest aircraft order in its history today with an additional 270 Airbus and Boeing planes.
Combined with existing orders, United is now expecting 90 737MAX 8, 50 737MAX 9, 250 737MAX 10, 50 A321XLR, and 70 A321neo, for some 510 new narrowbody aircraft. In 2023 the airline will get a new plane every 3 days.
They will replace some 200 50 seat single cabin regional planes and 100 mainline narrowbody aircraft. But it will still add tens of thousands of seats as United will massively grow their domestic network this decade.
The new planes will start coming this summer with a new signature interior featuring seat-back entertainment in every seat, larger overhead bins that will accommodate every passenger’s carry-on bag, the industry’s fastest in-flight WiFi, as well as a bright look-and-feel with LED lighting.
While American has paid money during the pandemic to strip out seat-back entertainment in every cabin on its 737 and 737MAX aircraft, United is going the other way. They will have 13″ HD screens in every first class seat and 10″ HD screens in every Economy seat on the 737MAX with free access to thousands of movies, TV shows, audio playlists, podcasts, and games. Every seat on these aircraft has access to electrical power and USB charge ports. The aircraft will even have Bluetooth for easy connections between wireless headphones and the seatback entertainment screens!
While some experts predicted that streaming entertainment would kill off seat-back entertainment, they missed the fact that people today consume entertainment while also using their phone to browse the internet.
American is trying to compete with Frontier and Spirit, but they will never get their costs low enough to truly compete and it will cost them premium revenue as they position themselves as an airline to avoid. Delta and United are wisely going the other direction, providing product differentiation to earn a revenue premium. That seems like a smart strategy to me.
United will retrofit its entire existing mainline fleet to the new interior so that 66% will be complete by 2023 and 99% by 2025!
United will also significantly expand Economy Plus and First class seating, offering 53 more premium seats per departure by 2026, a 75% increase from the 2019 fleet. The 737 MAX 10 and A321neo will feature 20 First class seats and 64 Economy Plus seats. That continues United’s premium heavy expansion with the CRJ-550 and the 767-300 offering a majority of their seats in premium cabins.
United also committed to operating all Newark flights with first class cabins and they expect to be back to their pre-pandemic schedule in Newark by November. They note that they are currently building new United Clubs in Newark’s Terminals A and C and will renovate the existing tired club in Terminal C. The new Terminal C club will seat over 500 passengers.
What do you think of United’s announcement?
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34 Comments On "United Places Massive Aircraft Order, Will Go Fully Premium While American Goes The Other Direction"
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This is awesome! I guess Scott Kirby wasn’t the one deserving of the bean counter moniker at AA.
Alternatively, analysts at United showed him that you can make more money by investing in product instead of just counting beans.
Either way, this is great news for passengers.
Lol, yup.
Great news for passengers from an in-flight experience perspective, but don’t you expect this to drive prices higher as they start to make payments on the new aircraft which would be a negative for us?
They may get a small premium, but competition will keep prices in check.
Can someone explain to me why the split between Boeing and Airbus? Isn’t fleet consistency a great money saver? And stick with one manufacturer
Carriers like Southwest and Spirit love fleet consistency to keep costs ultra-low.
It’s less important to major airlines that need specific aircraft for different missions. An A321XLR can easily fly across the pond, much farther than any narrowbody from Boeing.
Plus, being open to Airbus and Boeing means that you can get better pricing through negotiations.
Southwest uses both Boeing and Airbus. You can still have “fleet consistency” by having larger quantities of fewer models.
They most certainly do not.
If you are the real Yehuda57 you are officially disqualified from the avgeek club There we’re some talks for an Airbus order but they never materialized.
Probably just for negotiation purposes.
Lol, I stand corrected. I’ve never been a member of such a club. I’ve flown on dozens upon dozens of different aircraft, and the only one* I could have told you what model it was a few minutes after the flight was the Fokker 100.
*This is an exaggeration just to prove I’m the real Yehuda57
XLR I get (and a big question why BA doesn’t have anything to compete ) but why NEO’s ? I assume if negotiating and you place all aircraft with one manufacturer you’d get a better price. Similar to AA and the A321. But who knows, now after COVID they might be groveling for any order size just to get orders on book…
Maybe there’s a backdoor agreement to potentially allow United off the hook for the A350 order in exchange for placing the NEO order?
Otherwise, my only guess is they must have gotten a sweetheart deal for the NEOs.
Shocking that Boeing has no answer for the XLR and still no word on the 797.
So, where’s Doug Parker?
I’m busy going to every BLM rally! Far more important work than running an airline.
So is this just a entertainment upgrade or i’m missing something ?will the seats/legroom be better or the same ?
It seems they are making most of coach “premium” these days with only the last few rows in rear free to select is this a continuation ?
Why the EXCLAMATION MARK! after 2025? Big deal
Because nobody expected them to retrofit their existing fleet. That’s far more costly and time consuming than just taking new planes with the new interior.
Well with all our taxpayer money to help the “hard hit” airline it seems like they have plenty to go around.
They also ordered some new super sonic passenger jets recently.
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/airlines/united/boom-united-orders-supersonic-jets/
“Ordered” is a relative term. More like bought some cheap PR which I guess worked…
The email said “As we add these larger aircraft and fly fewer regional planes…” They’re gonna be flying domestic routes that used to be on a smaller aircraft with a new larger aircraft but keeping the route?
Or they will move them to CRJ-550.
The recent grounding of the MAX series emphasizes the importance of having a diversified fleet.
True
“larger overhead bins that will accommodate every passenger’s carry-on bag”…… every passenger whom isn’t Economy Basic that is…. ;P
Unless they have a United CC 🙂
You forgot to include a link. 😉
Dan so united or delta for the win? Currently a avid delta guy because LGA is close but seems like united with star alliance for the win as delta skymile program really is a lot less exciting these days, the only good partner they have is virgin since i fly a lot to LHR.
If i do go united any recommendations on trifecta CC to get ?
Thank you for all the work you on this forum love following your stuff.
United certainly has better partners and miles, but whether it’s worth going to EWR for is a tough question.
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/united-card-get-heres-comparison-chart/
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/earn-100000-miles-brand-new-chase-united-quest-card-plus-get-2-free-checked-bags-rebates-paid-award-tickets/
So long as these thieves first pay back every penny they got from the US taxpayer in the last year and a half, I suppose this is fine.
The reason they are able to get many Boeing airplanes and heavily discounted I may add, is because Boeing pre pandemic made a lot of airplanes, and right when the pandemic hit most of their orders were canceled. So United is taking advantage of this by paying pennies on the dollar for ready built brand new aircraft just sitting…